Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the USSR, or the Soviet Union, is a Communist regime spanning parts of Europe and Asia, and the largest single state on the planet. It is one of the world's nuclear and Areum superpowers. The USSR is a member of the United Nations and, like the United States, one of the few members that did not ratify 1991 Type-III Regulatory Treaty. It is notable for having the highest ratio of metahuman awakenings to population seen outside of the African Continent, something that is attributed to its history of oppressive policies and lingering discontent between its disparate nations. Despite this it is considered a Recovered country, due to rapid and extensive reconstruction during its isolation in the Reconstruction Era. History Red October The Union of Societ Socialist Republics had its beginning in the October Revolution of 1917, when the Bolsheviks, led by Vladamir Lenin rose up against the newly elected democratic government that had resulted from the earlier revolution in February, which had overthrown Tsarist Russia. After the subsequent civil war had been won, the victorious Bolsheviks rechristened themselves the Communist Party, and signed the "Treaty on the Creation of the USSR." Stalinization and "De-Kulakization" Once the USSR had been founded, the issue remained of how precisely the stated goal of reaching communism was to be achieved. During the civil war, a brutal form of land and capital redistribution called "war communism" had been utilized, but that was not sustainable in the long term. Attempts to revitalize the economy were made, the most effective one being Lenin's New Economic Plan, which allowed for private trade and loosened state control on the economy. This was not however universally accepted. Divisions began to form in the party, not hindered at all by Lenin's policy of anti-factionalism. The issues dividing the party were only made more pronounced when Lenin fell ill and later died, leaving the party leaderless. At this point, the General Secretary, Joseph Stalin, seized control of the upper branches of the party, having already solidified power due to his position being the one responsible for appointing party members to positions within the party itself. He carried out a series of purges in the party, eventually eliminating virtually all of the longtime members who had served alongside Lenin, replacing them with less experienced members loyal to him alone. Stalin's ascent spelled the end of the NEP, and the beginning of a brutal process of forced collectivization that would ultimately result in over six million deaths by the end of 1934, the majority being in the Ukranian SSR. Despite the brutality that it was carried out using, the First Five Year Plan was successful. Soviet industry grew at an exponential rate, but at the cost of agricultural output and lives. This increased industrial capacity would prove critical in 1941. World War II When Germany attacked the Soviet Union, the nation should not have been taken by surprise. Unfortunately, Stalin was absolutely convinced that the nonaggression pact that had been negotiated would be respected, and, ignoring reports from spies which included the exact date of the invasion, refused to make any preparations. This foolishness would cost the USSR dearly, and Stalin at the time expected it to cost him his life, as he for a time retreated to his home expecting to be overthrown. However, those that he appointed instead came to beg him to retake control, and of course, he agreed. Stalin then proceeded to make his first public appearance since the invasion and gave a speech that would characterize the Soviet perception of the war for decades to come. Calling the citizens of the USSR his comrades, he declared that the war was a "Great Patriotic War," one that was a test of the entire USSR, and Communism itself. Thus rallied, the citizenry of the USSR dedicated themselves to the destruction of their fascist foe. The victory would not come easily. Among other factors, the Soviet Union was sorely lacking in Type-II individuals after the brutality of both World War One and the subsequent revolutions. Germany had suffered as well, but still had more available and deployed than the USSR ever did until the very end of the war. This, combined with the massive losses during 1941, put the Red Army on the back foot up until 1943, when they finally began to drive the invaders back in earnest. By the time that Berlin fell, the Red Army had lost approximately 11,000,000 soldiers either killed or wounded, and the Soviet Union had lost up to 20,000,000 civilians by some counts. After such devastating losses, it would take some time for the USSR to recover, which was not helped by the USA refusing to send aid to them, which the US was doing for all the other combatants. This, along with the US building a strategic bomber fleet for the deployment of their new RM enhanced nuclear weapons, sowed the seeds for a long-lasting conflict between the two powers. The Cold War The Cold War was characterized by two separate but interrelated conflicts. The conflict between the USSR and its support of communist revolutionaries, and the USA and its policy of containment, which involved the unquestioning support for those fighting said revolutionaries was one part of the overarching conflict. The other was the race to acquire and monopolize sources of Areum, which was not strictly between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, as at times nations within the alliances quarreled with their own allies over particularly rich deposits. Due to the rapid rate at which technology advanced during this time period, this is commonly considered to be the closest that the human race has ever come to annihilating itself. During the Cold War, the US and the Soviet Union fought proxy wars chiefly in Korea and Vietnam, but also to a lesser degree the middle east. During this time, both superpowers used the opportunity to test new technologies and weapons, such as the American heavy strategic bomber initiative, which would eventually result in the creation of the ''Citadel''-class Aerial Battleship. Soviet technology likewise advanced at a rapid rate, as the manufacturing bureaus experimented with and pushed the limits of what could be made with the Areum enhanced factories of the USSR. The other area in which the USSR began to excel in during this time period is computing, specifically their exploration of Trinary Computers as opposed to the binary computers utilized by all other powers. By the end of the era, the USSR had firmly established itself as the primer manufacturer and developer of advanced electronic and mechanical technologies but lagged behind the USA in the commercial and military applications of magitech. The other aspect of the Cold War, the race to the North and South poles ended in a rough stalemate when judging each alliance as a whole. NATO succeeded in staking and defending a claim to the entire Antarctic continent, and to this day gets the vast majority of its Areum from there. The Warsaw pact meanwhile has a virtually uncontested presence in the Arctic circle, with multiple deep sea Areum refineries defended by an extensive submarine network, the backbone of which is provided by several Project 941 Akula submarines. Judging however from a single nation standpoint, the field is a good deal less level. The USA controls the vast majority of the NATO holdings in all but name and has an advantage in applied magitech that few nations can come close to matching. The European Union controls Canada, Scandinavia, Greenland, and Iceland, from which the majority of its Areum comes from, but the quantity is lesser than that of the USA. The Warsaw pact is utterly dominated by the USSR, with the entirety of the Arctic ocean and the Areum deposits there under its direct control, and little else in the hands of the other nations. This is somewhat lessened in effect by the Soviet approach to Areum utilization, however, as the resulting goods are provided to their allies at a reduced cost. Overall, however, the USA can be considered to be the victor of the race to the poles, with its control of the largest single source of Areum, and its domination of the magitech market. Awakening The Soviet Union was in the midst of a massive upsurge of political upheaval when the Awakening Incident occurred. The economy had grown to be far too large for a single body to effectively micromanage, and furthermore, the Communist Party, having grown complacent due to its long time in power, was immensely corrupt. Renewed nationalist protests were beginning in countries such as Poland, Ukraine, and the Balkans. In an attempt to counteract this, the newly appointed General Secretary, Mikhail Gorbachev, began instituting new policies which he termed Perestroika and Glasnost. These policies, the first being a massive restructuring of the Soviet economy and the second being a new anti-corruption campaign combined with reduced restrictions on free speech, were moderately successful during the initial period of implementation, and it is a subject of debate among historians whether, had they continued, they could have resulted in an equal, free USSR that would not be matched in reality until the 2017 Centennial Reforms. Unfortunately, that was not to be. The Type-III Awakening Incident, fueled by the fires of resentment and unrest present in the nations of the Warsaw Pact, resulted in a higher concentration of violent metahumans than was present initially in any other developed nation. This resulted in several entire cities falling into feudalism or declaring independence aimlessly before the Red Army, despite losses, regained control. However, on April 12, 1986, the first known instance of a secondary awakening occurred in Warsaw, where General Secretary Gorbachev was giving a speech to attempt to rally the citizenry to defend the USSR against this new, as yet unknown threat. Three hours after the speech concluded without convincing the crowd or those watching the broadcast, an opaque haze descended on the city center and began spreading inexorably. Later analysis of the incident suggests that a metahuman had awakened with an Affector power that allowed them to manipulate the amount of water in the nearby atmosphere. It is unknown whether a degree of fine-tuned control was initially included, but what is entirely clear is that it was lost completely once the metahuman had awakened a second time. The fog rapidly condensed into a seemingly endless ground level pseudo rain that permeated the entire city, not limited to external areas only. This is what proved lethal, as those enveloped would quickly drown as their lungs filled up with water, and respiration masks proved unable to prevent the effect. After futilely attempting to find the source, first with soldiers, then with a prototype remotely controlled drone, then a metahuman volunteer, the entire city was obliterated with a "clean" nuclear strike. The metahuman responsible was eliminated, and with them the fog, but the death toll was above one million, and with the city died Gorbachev. In an emergency meeting of party leaders, a new General Secretary was appointed, and the "Zero Tolerance" laws were passed, deeming all metahumans potential enemies of the state and people until proven otherwise, subject to arbitrary impressment, exile, imprisonment, or execution based on the judgement of the highest ranking available officer at the time. The Soviet Union also reached out to its traditional foe, the USA, with a proposal for a temporary alliance to against any and all metahuman threats, and the reclassification of the use of nuclear weapons against metahumans as a PNA (Peaceful Nuclear Explosion).The alliance lasted until 1991 when the Type-III Regulatory treaty was signed. During the years after the uprisings, the USSR saw a period of increased brutality. The KGB was expanded and began adding metahumans to its ranks in addition to the wizards who already served. Monitoring of Soviet citizens, claimed to be justified by the threat of metahuman terrorism, became even more omnipresent. Dissent, protest, and nearly all cases of civil disobedience were subject to summary exile to Gulag camps should they be proven to have resulted in an awakening. These policies, though ineffective and thought to in fact cause awakenings, were doubled down upon during the following years as violent awakening after violent awakening resulted in horrific loss of life. The USSR thus descended into a period of strict isolationism, its borders shut, and communication with any non-Communist state limited to going through the UN. It would be more than twenty years before the Iron Curtain was parted once more. The Centennial Reformation The USSR had, in isolation, made few advances in the realm of Areum manipulation, placing it even more hopelessly behind the USA. But, it had finally solved the perpetual issues plaguing its planned economy, utilizing a massive network of trinary computers called the Tri-net, routed through a stratellite network and linked to a master core in Volgograd. This core, designed to be capable of learning, self-optimization, and modification, handles the day to day business of the Soviet economy, allowing Gosplan to focus on the grand scale instead of getting bogged down in the minutia. By 2013, as part of this network, every household in the Soviet Union was allocated a Tri-net access point, and one device per member at school age and above. Advances in automation had also contributed to the stabilization of the Soviet Economy, finally eliminating the issue of defective products as a result of unmotivated workers. Despite the advances, however, the problems that Gorbachev had seen did not vanish with his death. But they were ignored for years afterward by both the party and the citizenry, as neither were willing to sacrifice security for freedom. It was not until 2017 that the USSR announced that it would be opening its borders once more, and reestablishing ComIntern to honor the spirit of the revolution. In a televised address, later known as the "Contradiction of the State" the General Secretary of the Soviet Union announced her intentions to make the USSR once more a full member of the international community, and promised to fulfill the task left to her by the deceased Mikhail Gorbachev. As part of this, the USSR dedicated itself to the decensoring of the tri-net and the declaration that access to it and the global binary internet (which an emulator was created for and distributed) was a basic human right. As of today, the USSR ironically has a better working relationship with its old rival than it does with the UN, due to irreconcilable differences in regards to how Type-III individuals should be treated and dealt with. The USSR has sent military assets to assist the USA in putting down problems related to metahumans before, and during the end of the Korean War the two superpowers joined forces to depose Kim Jong Un. In July 2029, the USSR announced that scientists working for one of it's research bureaus had managed to develop a method to reverse the anthro-feralis conversion ritual, though the reversion treatment was only effective on artifical (converted) anthro-feralis. This prompted massive retaliation from CLAW, who managed to detonate a small yield nuclear device in the middle of the Red Square, destroying the Kremlin and killing thousands. Important aspects of USSR Policy As any major power, the Soviet Union's policies and laws, internal or external, have effects far beyond their geographical borders and are often compared with that of other major powers. Immigration The Soviet Union has an immigration policy that would be considered draconian if it were not for the fact that it is universal and does not persecute certain minorities more than it persecutes anyone else. There is a universal maximum quota for immigration each year, made up of quotas for each officially recognized ethnicities, with requirements for the minimum number of each ethnicity admitted each year before other ethnicities can get an increased quota. These numbers are roughly equivalent to the demographics of the USSR, though the percentage of anthroferalis immigrants has increased in recent years. Any and all immigrants must pass a scrupulous vetting overseen by the KGB where their history is investigated and compared to their own testimony upon application. Discrepancies are addressed and dealt with, sometimes severely. Then, immigrants are sent to live for five years in one of the numerous border "Migrant cities" which exist for the purpose of keeping a close eye on recent migrants to ensure that no subversive elements managed to sneak through the screening. Security presence in these cities is far higher than that of other major cities, as is the level of surveillance. These cities also serve to identify the skills that the migrants may have and train them to allow them to become productive members of the Communist state. After five years, migrants are given full citizenship, which includes the right to move freely around the union and live where they choose (within reason, there must be available housing and work that they are qualified for). Type-II The USSR, partially due to its chronic lack of individuals capable of manipulating Areum during its formative years, developed a significantly different approach to utilizing them that lasts to this day. As a northern country, the USSR had an abundance of Areum, but could not frivolously throw away the lives of those few who could manipulate it. Thus, Type-II individuals were employed in state factories and other similar stations such as collective farms where they could use their abilities to improve both the rate and efficiency of production. As a result, the T-34 tank, among other weapons of war, was produced at a rate that astonished the Nazi invaders, who expressed distress at the seemingly unending supply of material that the Red Army was being constantly resupplied with. This approach of using Areum to rapidly create advanced material nonetheless usable by Type-1 individuals has lasted to this day, and is exemplified by the Il-104, which initially utilized magitech in its construction and has optional modules to utilize Aurem further, but can be flown at full combat effectiveness by a crew comprised solely of Type-1 individuals. While military service is not completely out of the question for Areum wielders, it is not encouraged, and they are not officially allowed in positions that could see combat. Rarely, a particularly skilled Type-II combatant will be deployed to assist in a combat situation, but almost never in a forward position and usually in a supporting role. Today, as a result of this doctrine, the Soviet Union is on the forefront of technological innovation, far outstripping its longtime rival in this area. Automation and mechanization have spread to all aspects of the Soviet economy, from automated farms to the mechanized troops of the Red Army, which now make up almost fifty percent of its ground forces. Soviet metallurgy and material science have likewise seen a major boost from this approach, which has enabled their military to remain competitive with other nations that use Areum in a direct combat role due to the durability of the individual units even under magical assault. Type-III Soviet policy on Type-III individuals was affected greatly by the multiple instances of rebellion they were forced to deal with within their own borders, one of which resulted in the destruction of Warsaw. That, combined with the indignity of having to work with the USA, their longtime foe, resulted in an atmosphere of fear and suspicion that lasted for decades afterward. The Soviet Union was the first nuclear power to utilize tactical nuclear weapons against metahumans, first at Warsaw, and at least seven other times during the time of isolation. Other documented incidents that required eliminating a Type-III threat have been dealt with via carpet bombardment utilizing conventional weaponry, massed fire from heavily armored army divisions, and in one memorable occasion, deorbiting a satellite to kill a metahuman who had shown the capability to take control of electronic objects. Official state policy during the time of isolation was that Type-III individuals were considered to be "traitors until proven comrades" and upon awakening and discovery would be taken in (often through force, if necessary) for testing while a scrupulous background check was run. Should the individual be proven a valuable/potentially valuable citizen of the Soviet Union, they would be inducted into the KGB where they would be kept under close supervision at all times and would occasionally be called upon to enforce security within the borders of the USSR. Those who voluntarily reported themselves, as encouraged, would be given far greater leniency, and in most cases would be allowed to retain their previous life, albeit with increased scrutiny. After the Centennial reformation, mandatory induction was reduced to merely induction into either the KGB or military reserve and subject to activation in times of crisis, and the more unwilling or problematic members were quietly "allowed to retire." metahumans who turned themselves in voluntarily have since been given the right to serve in all areas of the Soviet Union, including holding government office or, with special approval from the Presidium, to serve in the military as a commissioned officer. As of the present day, the Soviet Union possesses one of the largest reserves of combat-capable Type-III individuals in the world, with metahumans serving in all branches of the military, government, and public sector. Despite metahumans being forbidden to serve in combat positions except when directly engaging others of their kind, this has proven to be of some concern to the UN, as this is seen as a direct challenge to the ACEIF. However the USSR's position on the security council has prevented any action being taken to address this violation. Furthermore, it was announced in 2030 that one of the members of the newly elected Presidium council was a metahuman, though their identity was not made public. Locations and features * Moscow (capital) Category:Countries Category:USSR